Click on any photo to see a larger version of it.



One thing that I really like of the Belmont Park of today is that they are very proud the parks history.



Belmont Park has kept a lot of that history alive by not modernizing the station.  There are no queue gates and no railings.  While the Giant Dipper is off speeding around the track guests tickets are taken; I mean scanned as this is 2019, and they go in and stand on the feet wherever they want to ride.



Unfortunately the trains that ran on the Giant Dipper from 1925 to 1976 no longer run.  What we have today are Morgan trains.  Thankfully the color scheme of pink and teal that greeted me the last time I was here in 2001 is long gone and the trains have more of a classic look.

While I am not a fan of Morgan trains I do have to admit that one day my dream is that Great Coasters International supply Belmont Park with one of their Millennium Flyer trains that were patterned after the classic Prior & Church trains.



The Giant Dipper's original trains ran for fifty one years until the park; not the coaster, ran out of steam and closed.



With the park looking worse and worse as the 1960's turned in the 1970's it limped through the bicentennial year of 1976 and shut down.  There were calls for the then dilapidated eyesore Giant Dipper to be demolished like so many other coastal coasters like the Cyclone Racer in Long Beach, the Sea Serpent at Pacific Ocean Park,  Big Dipper at Playland at the Beach in San Francisco,  Giant Dipper at Redondo Beach or Some Kick (what a great Name) on the Venice Amusement Pier.



Next


Copyright 1999 - 2025

Paul B. Drabek